


The Old Grandfather Clock

by Dibleopard



Category: Sanders Sides, Thomas Sanders, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 17:56:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14170377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dibleopard/pseuds/Dibleopard
Summary: There was an old grandfather clock in the hall.





	The Old Grandfather Clock

_Tick, tick, tick._

There was an old grandfather clock in the hall. It never needed winding up and it never needed charging. It simply ran, ticking with the regularity of every other working clock in existence.  
The clock had always been there. No one could remember a time when the corridor had fallen silent. Its slow ticking became as much a part of the hall as the walls, burrowing into the wallpaper like a mouse.

_Tick, tick, tick._

The old grandfather clock was ticking when Patton had first arrived, blinking in the sudden light of existence. He had sat there, dazed, in a dimly lit house filled only by the methodical tick that echoed from the hall.  
As lights grew brighter and movement became familiar, he found the source of the only noise he knew. It stood tall in its beauty, solid. Moving parts waved through windows and his heart fell into rhythm with its ticks. Patton saw it for its heartbeat and its steadfast presence in an otherwise unfurnished house. Inanimate though it was, in the first few hundred thousand ticks of Patton’s life, it became a source of comfort, living up to the name of ‘grandfather’.

_Tick, tick, tick._

As Patton developed, he grew curious as to what the clock did, and what the ticks meant. His curiosity became more fervent until one day he was joined in front of the clock by another.  
Logan’s first sight was the clock. The ticking had always had a source, and the clock had never been the only thing in the house. Patton and his endless line of things filled up bare rooms and walls and floors. The clock no longer stood out for being steadfast in solitude, rather the intricacy found half-hidden behind glass. The ticks he deduced to be passing seconds and the cogs he found himself entranced by. Logan saw it for its precise complexity and its perfection that could be found nowhere else in a house of bold colours and clumsy shapes. In the ticking seconds he found to himself, Logan spent his early life studying and learning from it, but never quite working out how it ran.

_Tick, tick, tick._

Patton and Logan lived in each other's company as they grew. The clock was a common joy between the two, despite their different reasons, and they were still curious. Where did it come from? They stared at the gold decorations together until a third appeared beside them.  
The clock’s purpose was never a mystery to Roman, nor its inner workings. He had never known it to be the single feature in an empty house. Instead, it stood out as the most beautiful. Roman saw it for the delicate carvings and the story of its past hidden by veils of time. When he wasn't inspiring creative bursts, Roman whiled away idle time dreaming up a million stories for the clock, never uncovering the truth.

_Tick, tick, tick._

The three existed for the longest time together until Roman found himself pondering the ticks he was wasting thinking about the ticks he was wasting. He panicked for the first time in his life before he noticed the new boy sitting beside him.  
Virgil had never seen the clock as a guardian; he had never had to decipher its ticks; he had never needed to wonder about its origins. The only thing left was to take it as it was. Virgil saw it for its calming consistency and its terrifying time-telling. Its ticks echoed in his head, reminding him of every second he was wasting, and how close death could be. Virgil spent his nights simultaneously stressed and soothed by the clock’s steady ticking, never deciding which was more rational.

_Tick, tick, tick._

The old grandfather clock kept time. It stood in its place and chimed its cues and ticked its rhythms. No one knew how it was powered, and no one knew where it came from, but each side that sat in front of it at one point or another knew what it meant to them, and knew that it would keep ticking long after they had forgotten.


End file.
